What if Saudi Arabia erupts?

The demonstrations in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world could well be the harbinger of an excruciating oil crisis. Not because Egypt is a major oil exporter. It isn’t. Egypt produces less than 1 percent of the world’s oil. And not even because it controls the Suez Canal, through which 1.8 million barrels, about 5 percent of the overall global tanker trade, travels daily.

Egypt is relevant to the oil market because it may be a bellwether for the disgruntled masses in Saudi Arabia. And instability in that oil kingdom is how mega-oil shocks are made.

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For decades, experts have warned about the fragility of the House of Saud. To curtail their opposition, Saudi monarchs have placated their subjects with cradle-to-grave, petrodollar-funded entitlement programs, while taming the Wahhabi establishment through charitable contributions to religious institutions worldwide. Inspired by the events elsewhere in the Sunni Muslim world, this social contract could face a challenge at the worst possible time — when the House of Saud’s top echelon is ill and geriatric.

If the Saudis should decide to emulate their Egyptian brethren, a new oil crisis might be upon us. Saudi Arabia not only is the world’s largest exporter, it also holds 70 percent of the world’s spare production capacity. In other words, Saudi Arabia is the oil market’s only firefighter, capable of supplying the market when others falter. But if the fire station is on fire, there will be no one to save the neighborhood.

A new oil shock would cause our economy to nose-dive back into a recession.

Since World War II, studies show, every recession except one was preceded by a sharp rise in oil prices. In today’s economy, this could be as devastating as a second heart attack is for a fragile patient just recovering from a first one.

Since no U.S. aircraft carrier or airborne division can stand between Saudi protesters and their riot police, the least Washington can do to withstand a prolonged period of uncertainty in the Middle East is to expedite our effort to wean our economy from oil.